Meet New Features
in Photoshop 202 0
1
OBJECT SELECTION
This is probably the headline new feature, because it’s a bit
like magic. Users of Photoshop Elements 2019 will already
be familiar with it, because—bafflingly—it appeared in CC’s cut-
down little brother a full year before coming to the main suite.
Perhaps it was some sort of test. Whatever, it’s here now, and
mostly works. If there’s an object clearly defined against a clear
background, it’s able to select it just fine. If the dividing line isn’t
clear, or if the object and background are the same color, it can
have difficulty. Even so, it’s usually enough to get you straight
to the Select and Mask stage, perhaps filling in a few gaps first
with the Quick Selection brush, rather than fiddling about making
a fully manual selection.2
USING OBJECT SELECTION
You’ll find the Object Selection tool buried in the toolbar
along with the rest of the selection tools. It looks like a
square with an arrow beside it. To use it, drag a rectangle around
the object you want to select, and let go. The app does the rest.
There’s a couple of options, however. One is that, instead of
dragging a rectangle, you can use a version of the Polygonal
Lasso to more precisely outline the object you want to beFOR ANYONE WHO SPOTTED THE CREATIVE CLOUD APP chugging and downloading recently,
well, it was Photoshop getting a big update. Adobe seems to have dropped the CC moniker,
although Creative Cloud is very much still with us. Version 2020 (or 21) of the venerable image-
editing app brings a swathe of improvements across the whole face of the app, but stops short
of fundamentally changing the look and feel, which has been set since the dark gray background
made its appearance several years ago.
Some of the changes are to tools that have been the same since forever—the Brush tool,
for instance, can now be rotated with the arrow keys while you’re painting, and hitting tilde (~)
flips it into an eraser. The Properties panel, much unloved, has been revitalized with shortcuts
to useful tools, depending on what you’ve got selected. Then there’s the Sensei cloud tech of
which Adobe is so proud, further integrated into Photoshop with the new Object Selection tool.
So, while it’s not a breathtaking reinvention of the app, the latest updates are sure to calm
the troubled brows of subscribers, who get an updated app without having to fork out over $600,
like in the old days. –IAN EVENDENYOU’LL NEED THIS
CREATIVE CLOUD
Sign up for a subscription
at http://www.adobe.com.selected. And when it works, it works very well, as you
can see on our picture of an orca [Image A]. The selection
outline has tightly wrapped to the division between
whale and sea, even though this isn’t the sharpest photo,
leaving us just one area below the fin to touch up. Our
other image, of the kangaroo, however, fared less well.
Even using the lasso wasn’t enough to get the program
to select the lower back leg, a consequence of the animal
being a very similar color to its background [Image B].
Using Photoshop’s existing Select Subject functionality
caught much of the lower leg, but also added the rock
behind the kangaroo’s head.3
IMPROVED PROPERTIES
Elsewhere, the Properties panel has been
shown a little love. If you’re working on a single
Background layer, you now get options to change the size
of your canvas, including its bit depth and color mode—it’s
now a fast way to change an image to grayscale without
bothering the “Image” menu. There are also shortcuts
to show and hide rulers, guides, and the grid, and QuickBA©^ADOBE68 MAXIMUMPC JAN 2020 maximumpc.com
R&D